


Shut Down

by Sonora



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, M/M, Permanent Injury, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 16:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11604492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonora/pseuds/Sonora
Summary: Herc and Chuck head back to the Sydney Shatterdome to pick up a few things.





	Shut Down

**Author's Note:**

> A little post-Ptifall drabble for will-o-wisp, who needed some cheering up. Hope this scratches the itch! 
> 
> (I'm still working on the recovery portion of my coma-fic too... between family emergencies, my office turning into a complete shitshow, and a massive convention in oh, three days, yeah. No writing time.)

Herc shoves the door on his locker shut, the eek of the cheap sheet metal echoing in the drivesuit room. There wasn’t anything in here - of course not, he’d been thorough - but nothing isn’t what he’s looking for.

Seems he got everything though.

He knows that. Knew that before he walked in here, actually. He figures he just wanted something more to be here than what little is left.

This room used to be so full. Now the tools are gone, the smaller equipment sold off or shipped to some RAAF base, the larger or specialized stuff mothballed. It’s not just the equipment though. It’s the techs, the other pilots, Chuck.

Everyone’s gone. 

Too many of them are dead.

Herc feels it, but it’s not his discomfort.

They’d left a few things behind at the Sydney ‘Dome. Unavoidable, really, with as little warning as they’d had for the redeployment to Hong Kong back in January. The Security Council morale vampires had decided it was best for everybody not to give them more than 72 hours notice, just in case any of the pilots wanted to get territorial and refuse to leave. A reasonable concern, considering that the remaining three pilot teams at Sydney, Australians all, had done everything they could to stall. 

It was a decision that got Echo and Vulcan killed. But Sydney had avoided a second nuke strike, something they had all agreed they would die to prevent.

Too many ghosts in this place, Herc thinks. Too many friends lost.

The Drift tugs at him.

He knows where he’s going.

He finds Chuck sitting on the bed in their old quarters, a shoe box open on the bare mattress next to him, Max curled up in his old dog bed, happily gnawing an old toy into submission. The RAAF already packed up what they’d left behind, all part of the decommissioning process, and the six moving boxes had been stacked neatly by the door. Chuck’s ripped all of these open, his pocket knife on the old table where he used to do his math homework, strewn their contents about the floor. Searching. 

Herc wants to give him shit about the mess, but he catches the sight of his boy’s shiny new legs dangling off their well-worn old bed, and he swallows it back.

He can repack everything. They don’t need to leave just yet.

“Found it, then?”

Chuck holds up an old issue of GQ from 2015, the one with Bruce and Trevin on the front, and nods. “Sure.”

He’d kept everything, back when he was just a sprog, a military brat still in awe of everything that they were building. But it’s not the Gages he’s looking for, and they both know it.

Herc sits down next to him, sifting through the box. He pulls out an old article about him and Scott, and puts it back just as quickly. “You don’t really want to burn these, do you?”

“Dunno,” Chuck mumbles.

And ahh, there it is. The _Vanity Fair_ spread from 2018. _The Rangers Becket: America’s Golden Boys_. Cheesy as fuck, but that was what was selling copy back then.

Chuck sniffs, and Herc can’t be sure if that’s irritation or upset. The ghost drift between them is still strong even after six months since the last time they stood in Striker together, but that doesn’t mean he understands what he’s feeling from his boy. Raleigh and Chuck had been in hospital together, in recovery, in physical therapy. Raleigh had been the one wheedling Chuck out of his post-amputation depressions; Raleigh had been the one who wouldn’t put up with Chuck’s shit; Raleigh had been the one to convince Chuck there were things worth living for yet. 

Raleigh had been the one to bring Chuck back after Pitfall, in every sense of the word. Even Herc has to admit that.

And the really ironic thing is, he wasn’t worried about losing his son to Raleigh until Raleigh _left_. 

Chuck, after all, was his boy. As far as Herc’s concerned, if Raleigh wants to join in, well... Manila had been a fucking good week. 

Whatever.

One thing at a time. 

“He’ll come back, son. He just had some things to deal with back in the States.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I am saying it. Cause it’s true.” Herc strokes a hand through his son’s dark red hair. Longer now than it used to be, Herc’s starting to love the feeling of it. Of having something to really hold onto, to tug. He’s not sure if they’ll ever get back to the really rough sex they used to have after kills, where everything was raw and Chuck just needed to _feel_ , even if it was just his old man throwing him into a wall and fucking him until he couldn’t stand up straight. But if they do, he’s got a whole laundry list of things that start and end with Chuck’s hair. “He knows where you are.”

“Whatever,” Chuck sighs, and turns into him.

This has a rhythm. This is something they’ve done in this room a dozen, a hundred, times. This is the part where Chuck normally worms his way into his daddy’s lap, smiles that _fuck me_ smile of his, runs his hands down Herc’s sides to his...

But today, he makes one little move and then groans in frustration.

Right.

“Son...”

“I’m so fuckin’ tired of this shit, Dad, tired of everything going wrong and not working out and going to shit and...”

“Shh,” Herc says, moving away, rolling over on one hip so he can reach down to deal with Chuck’s legs. Even the best prosthetics are still seriously limited for above the knee amputations. There are some things Chuck just can’t do anymore, and one of those things happens to be riding his daddy’s cock in his daddy’s lap. He reaches under his boy’s cargo shorts and slips him out of the carbon fiber sheaths. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not fuckin’ okay,” Chuck grumbles, face flushed red with embarrassment.

“You came home to me,” Herc says firmly, and pushes Chuck back. Sure, the mattress is bare, but it is - was - theirs. Who gives a shit? “We’ll figure this shit out. I promise.”

Chuck huffs, like he doesn't believe a goddamn word that's leaving his old man's mouth.

He still wraps both arms and what's left of his legs around Herc's body, though.

Still lets Herc strip him. 

They might have to leave this place in a couple of hours. Live somewhere else. Live different lives. Be different people.

But this - the way Chuck clings to him, the way Chuck kisses him, opens for him, gasps when Herc breaches him, cusses and bites and begs for more - this, at least, is still home. This is theirs.


End file.
